“A THEOLOGY OF
OPTIMISM”
A Sermon by the
Sunday, January 25, 2009
All
A group of elderly Jewish men meet every Wednesday
for a coffee and a chat. They drink their coffee and then sit for hours
discussing the world situation. Usually, their discussion is very
negative.
One day, Moishe surprises his friends by announcing,
loud and clear, "You know what? I've now become an optimist."
Everyone is totally shocked and all conversation
dries up.
But then
Moishe replies, "Do you think it's easy being an
optimist?"
Actually, I’ve found that it is very easy to be an
optimist. All you have to do is ignore
those things that turn your thoughts away from optimism. You know, like the news. Or the prices of things. Or weather forecasts. Or the traffic. Or deadlines.
Or calories. Or home repair. Or bills in the mail. Or housecleaning. Or getting older. Or spam, Or . . .
Yes, it’s easy to be an optimist. Just don’t let your mind flash on any of
these things, and you’ve got it made.
One
thing I discovered in preparing this sermon.
Pessimism is a better resource for humor than optimism, because a
pessimist can poke fun at the optimist, but the optimist can’t be negative
about the pessimist. Here are a couple
more.
The
field worker was getting older and forgetful, but he always had a cheerful disposition,
always the optimist. When the crew broke
for lunch, he suddenly looked at his friend with dismay. “Oh no!” he said, “I forgot to bring my
lunch.” He paused a minute and added,
“And it’s a good thing I did. I left my
teeth at home, too.”
An
optimist accidently fell off the
That
is why so many comedians do pessimist “schtick.” Here is a little from
o
It seems the world is divided into good and bad people. The good ones may
sleep better but the bad ones seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. (adapted)
o
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you
want to live to be a hundred.
o
My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was
mugged by a Quaker.
It is a
challenge for me even to come up with an optimist joke.
The philosophical grounding of pessimism is actually
pretty sound. Two hundred years ago the
German philosopher
The logic of his argument is pretty hard to counter, for
deep down we know that so many of the choices we make (or more likely that we
see others make) are based more solidly on what is wanted, and our rational
mind is rallied to find some justification for what is chosen. That’s why there’s the word “rationalizing”
or “rationalization.” Because our reason
can be twisted and shaped to justify our actions; our will is stronger than our
reason.
What’s more is that the philosopher who is the godfather
of optimism offers, I’m afraid to confess, a much weaker argument than that of
Oh, give me a break!
If we don’t know God’s plan, then how is it that we know God couldn’t
make a world without Hurricane Katrina and AIDS. The French philosopher
But if you can get past the jokes, one is left wondering,
why be an optimist? If the pessimism can
be so easily justified, and optimism so easily mocked, why choose to be
optimistic.
The easiest answer to that question is the simple and
plain fact that optimism works. There is
an almost endless set of scientific studies to confirm that people who are
optimistic are happier in life than those who are pessimistic. Those who are successful in life
overwhelmingly tend to be those who have a positive outlook on life. Those who approach life with a positive
attitude are more pleasant to be around, and tend to have more friends. Optimists have happier marriages. Optimists live longer.
So on a very practical level, your chances for happiness
in life are much higher if you are an optimist rather than a pessimist. Modern studies have confirmed this, but the
principle has been known intuitively throughout the ages.
Pessimists may make the best comedians, hands down, but
the successful and inspiring people we know are overwhelmingly optimists. Here is a sample through the ages:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
So
on a very practical level, at least, the argument for optimism is simple: it
works. It works for happiness, it works
for success. It works.
But I suggest there are other reasons for looking at life
positively. There is a religious
justification.
Religion is, I think, what we human beings use to
understand our life as meaningful, as having some value and purpose. We do this when we find the world is on our
side, when we feel we are at home in the universe we find.
In his classic book, Varieties
of Religious Experience, philosopher and psychologist
“When I walk the fields, I am impressed now and then
with an innate feeling that everything I see has meaning, if I could but
understand it, and this feeling of being surrounded by truths which I cannot
grasp amounts to indescribable awe sometimes.
Here is what religious experience is about:
o
You see
a star, and feel that there is something more than a star there, that maybe it
can guide you if you just let it;
o
You
hear a piece of music, and feel it is speaking to you beyond the notes and
rhythm, that it produces waves of contentment which are meant to flow through
you, or waves of discontent that disturb you;
o
You
feel worthless and inadequate, but in moments of quiet contemplation or even
prayer, you are able to find strength within yourself that you didn’t know was
there, and you feel complete and worthy once again;”
It is a bit strange how all this works. In many ways, looking at the world through a
positive lens is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
In another essay,
Writing over a hundred years ago,
“There
are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith
exists in its coming. Although (some)
scientific absolutists insist that faith running ahead of scientific evidence
is the ‘lowest kind of immorality,’ it seems clear that more often than not,
faith in a fact can help create that fact.”
“Faith in a fact can help create that fact.” This is what all those successful and
inspirational people were trying to say when I quoted them earlier. This is the religious foundation of
optimism. Faith in a fact can help
create that fact.
Let me offer an example closer to home. Six or seven years ago, this congregation
desperately needed new bathrooms. Groups
were formed to figure out how we can make that happen, and after lots of
conversation it was obvious that if we are constructing new bathrooms, we ought
to refurbish other parts of the building and put in an elevator and upgrade the
organ and remodel the offices, and on and on.
It was a dream, but one that caught on.
To do what we wanted to do required a bit more million
dollars or more. That seemed like an
insurmountable challenge. And in fact,
it was surmountable only on one condition.
It would not happen unless we as a congregation believed it could
happen. Various groups worked diligently
over years to help convince us, to get us to believe the fact that we could do
it.
That is exactly what it took. To believe.
Faith in a fact can help create that fact.
That is how an optimistic
outlook can help shape a positive and meaningful life.
But there is another religious factor in looking at life
through a positive lens like optimism.
This element comes directly from our Unitarian and Universalist
traditions.
The central issue of our religious tradition was, and
still is, the dignity of human nature.
In this country, during the early 1800s, the doctrine of original sin
was commonly accepted in the New England Puritan culture. That doctrine proposed that each of us is
born with the stain of sin, that even new babies are servants of the devil, and
that the human soul’s default position is on the side of evil.
Those who would come to be called Unitarian or
Universalist objected strongly to this doctrine. People are not born evil, they argued, but
with the natural capacity for both good and evil. Whether we develop into good or bad character
rests on the nurture of our soul. The
metaphor of cultivation of the soul, like the cultivation of a garden, was
commonly used.
"The repeated turn of the word 'culture' or
'cultivation' in Unitarian sermons and devotional literature reveals a
conception of the soul based upon the organic analogy of germination,
development and fruition.... Just as a
plant needed direct and careful culture in order to grow and be productive, the
human soul required a constant attention to bring it to its full capacity. Moreover, the development of both the living
plant and the soul seemed to be directed by an inner potential, a force which,
if it were not hindered or altered, would assure a well-proportioned and
continuing process of growth."
The bottom line is that while the wider culture believed
the human soul to be naturally oriented toward evil, the Unitarians found the
strong capacity for good to be an innate part of each person. And while the doctrine of original sin
allowed that a person’s soul could be saved only through God’s intervention, by
the late 1800s, Unitarians were speaking of a doctrine they called “salvation
by character.” It suggests that the end
of the religious quest is not in fact correct belief. The litmus test of religion is not to be
found in creedal formulations. Rather,
the religious task is the nurture of that natural capacity in all of us for
good. Salvation by character.
This idea we inherit, from self-culture and salvation by
character to us today in our current Unitarian Universalist statement of
principles. It I s no coincidence that
this concept is, in fact, the very first of seven UU principles adopted in 40
years ago. It is this: We respect the “inherent worth and dignity of
every person.”
This statement is an optimistic view of humanity. Not everyone is a good person, but everyone
has that potential. Not everyone has a
well-cultivated character, but everyone, by virtue of their humanity, has
inherent worth and dignity.
In other words, in addition to the fact that looking at
the word through an optimistic lens actually works – it contributes to personal
happiness. In addition to the fact that
seeing life through optimistic eyes affirms the religious task of making life a
meaningful quest. In addition to all
that, our Unitarian and Universalist tradition directs us toward embracing a
positive view of humanity. The default
condition for being human is having inherent worth and dignity and the innate
capacity for choosing good.
I grant that pessimism is not without its value. It helps us to approach a world that has
manifold dangers with caution. It helps
us keep perspective. It helps us keep
from taking ourselves too seriously, and it often does so through humor. And humor can be healing.
But in the end, optimism has stronger power to keep us
going and keep us whole. In his great
essay on “Compensation,”
“refuses
limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism.”
The religious aspiration for optimism is expressed in
these familiar words of 19th century Unitarian minister
“Be ours a religion which,
like sunshine, goes everywhere;
its temple, all space;
its shrine, the good heart;
its creed, all truth;
its
ritual, works of love;
its profession of faith, divine living.”
Early on every thinking (person) makes the conscious
or unconscious decision whether to view the cup of life as half full, or dry as
the Garagum Desert. Those whose cup is half full are the world’s optimists, the
Pollyannas and the kind of people to be avoided at all costs, particularly at
parties. In
My suspicion is that the reason for the generally low
opinion held of the pessimist is related to his close ties to the critic, the
cynic, the misanthrope, the whiner and the curmudgeon. Personally, the only one
of these people I find objectionable is the whiner. The critic plays a vital
role in society by helping us to distinguish the gold from the dross, the wheat
from the chaff. The cynic - who by definition distrusts people’s motives - is
the type I want checking other people’s baggage at the airport, though not
necessarily my own. The misanthrope is a harmless cuss, keeping mainly to
herself and bothering no one, asking only that you not bother her. And the
loveable curmudgeon is responsible for most of literature’s best quotations,
maxims and aphorisms. But the whiner is another animal altogether. The whiner
has no saving grace whatsoever, and is as annoying as fingers on a dry
chalkboard.
I find the pessimist to be, if not exactly pleasant,
then at least sincere. You always know what a pessimist is thinking, and if you
don’t he will likely tell you anyway. The optimist, on the other hand, has
always struck me as an imposter, walking around with her nose toward the
heavens as if she inhabited a better world than you and me, a land of warm
green meadows where the sun always shines and there is never a drought because
of it. Not only that but the optimist is forever hypocritically criticizing
your negativity as though it were some kind of birth defect. The pessimist does
not go around saying, "Quit being so dadgum happy!" Or "Stop
that smiling will you!" But the optimist has no problem trying to change
your natural disposition. "Smile!" she snaps. "Quit being so
pessimistic!" . . .
Since the optimist has failed miserably in
transforming the pessimist through various methods of harassment and
blacklisting, she has come to rely more and more heavily on pseudo-science and
quackery to make her case. Such a study, undertaken recently by the Mayo Clinic
in
The godfather of the positive-thinking mafia was the
The psychologist